How do you make a mesh avatar blink?

[kratox]

I figured its done using shape keys but I don't know what you'd name the shape key to make it blink. Can anyone explain to me what you exactly need to do? My character just stares into the abyss of nothing :v.

[arton Rotaru]

In the past, before the enhanced skeleton called Bento existed, there were several methods of how to achieve blinking eyes. By texture animation on the eyeball itself. Or a texture animation on a transparent eyeball worn on top of the real eyeballs. Or by rotating a separate eyelid mesh itself. Or just creating closed eyelids as a separate material, or object, and turn their visibility on/off.

Nowadays it is possible to animate eyelids on the mesh head itself by rigging the lids to the appropiate facial bones, and creating a bvh, or .anim animation for the blinking motion.

All of these methods require some basic scripting in-world as well. Importing of custom shape keys is not supported in Second Life.

[Love Zhaoying]

Staring contest!